


the monster in the room has pretty eyes and shadows in his heart

by lategenocide



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Burning, Dark, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Stabbing, Trigger warning: mentions of rape, chan is just trying to write his damn music, chan is very screwed for a week, good luck don't read if eating or sensitive to what i've mentioned, he is also a nightmare in more than one way, hyunjin has a history, hyunjin is a mania, nothing is funny in this fic, psychological isolation i think, the hotel room idea was from listening to stephanie soo, the rape isn't between hyunchan but it's still mentioned, they are at a hotel, trigger warning: physical & mental abuse, trigger warning: sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:02:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24300040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lategenocide/pseuds/lategenocide
Summary: Chan wasn't a superstitious person. He worked in studios in run-down neighborhoods, gone through dark alleyways on his way back home to his small apartment, rode on empty subways, and walked through forests at night, just for inspiration. This room, however, was plain creepy."Hello, Channie," the voice made him jump. Chan turned back from the door to see a boy, black hair, puppy wide eyes, and a smiling mouth staring back at him, sitting cross-legged on the single bed.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Hwang Hyunjin
Comments: 12
Kudos: 58





	1. a change of pace gone wrong

**Author's Note:**

> hi! please read the tags if you haven't yet, i put all the trigger warnings i could for the planning I've done for this fic, but i will also add trigger warning for each chapter as needed. please skip this fic if you know any of these things will trigger you.
> 
> chapter trigger warning: physical abuse ( burning ), non-consensual sexual marking, allusions to a history of domestic / physical abuse  
> not sure if this will trigger anyone, but hyunjin is dead, but this chapter won't touch on how he died but does have a minor allusion to who did it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter trigger warning: physical abuse ( burning ), non-consensual sexual marking, allusions to a history of domestic / physical abuse  
> not sure if this will trigger anyone, but hyunjin is dead, but this chapter won't touch on how he died but does have a minor allusion to who did it.

The first thing that Chan noticed when he walked into the hotel room was the flicker of the lights as he turned them on.

The second was the too loud click of the door as it closed behind him on its own.

Chan wasn't a superstitious person. He worked in studios in run-down neighborhoods, gone through dark alleyways on his way back home to his small apartment, rode on empty subways, and walked through forests at night, just for inspiration. This room, however, was plain creepy.

"Hello, Channie," the voice made him jump. Chan turned back from the door to see a boy, black hair, puppy wide eyes and a smiling mouth staring back at him, sitting cross-legged on the single bed.

Chan wasn't a superstitious person, but everything in his body screamed, "This is bad!" the moment he laid eyes on him. He backed back, forcing a polite but mildly surprised smile on his face, never mind that _this boy somehow knew his name-_ "Sorry, I must've walked into the wrong room, I'll-"

The boy smiled again. This time, almost pathetically, like a puppy about to be abandoned, "You're not lost, Bang Chan. This is going to be your hotel room for the next week-" he paused, tilting his head to listen to a voice that Chan couldn't hear. He giggled. "Oh right! I forgot- that is if you can stay sane these next seven days! Don't worry, I'll let you do some of your producing work, but the rest of the time is for the two of us, okay?"

"What?" Chan asked dumbly. He rambled on as he stepped back from the bed, for the boy had hopped off the bed, walking towards him with a fixed, fake, so _fake_ smile on his lips. "Um, I don't even know your name- how do you know mine... and my occupation?" Panic raced up his spine as Chan's back hit the door. The hallway was narrow, big enough for only one person. Chan had nowhere to go as the big closed in on him.

"Oh, I didn't introduce myself, did I?" He said. "My name's Hwang Hyunjin- you'll be mine to play with for the next week, Channie!" Hyunjin's smile turns bright, innocent to a fault. Considering what he had just told him, the smile made Chan's stomach with unease.

Hyunjin leaned in closer, his breath tickling Chan's ear, his hand on his chest. Chan froze- discomfort and confusion held him in place, but could also be the hand by his head that warned him to stay still, "Oh my, I bet you'll look so cute half driven to insanity, hmm?" Hyunjin slid his hand down Chan's torso, now resting on his abdomen.

Chan did not like being shorter than Hyunjin- the boy was heavy in presence to begin with, couple that with his height- well, Chan wasn't a fan of feeling completely powerless. He had a locked door to his back and a creepy ( though attractive ) boy to his face. There were many questions for his unexpected dilemma- for one, what the fuck? For two, why did the hole even allow this, unless they don't know about some crazy person residing in one of their rooms, driving unsuspecting Australian producers into insanity?

"Why are you-" Chan's question faltered in his voice box when Hyunjin looked back down at him. His eyes had turned bright, piercing green. Weren't they dark chocolate brown just earlier? He quickly altered his question, "no, what are you?"

Hyunjin hummed, drawing patterns under Chan's shirt. "Hard to say- if you like Greek mythology, I could be a _mania_ , a spirit of one single extreme emotion- but I think I was killed a decade or so back? I was brought back though, in a different kind of existence. So perhaps I'm a reincarnated body of resentment! Either way, I have less restriction than when I was still alive." He tapped Chan's lower lip. "Any more questions, Channie? I'll answer anything you want~"

" _Anything_?" Chan echoed.

Hyunjin nodded, "Anything, as long as I can answer, anyway." He pressed closer, now playing with Chan's silver-blonde hair. "So cute." He cooed, looking extremely happy with the current set up. 

"Why do you, uh, do this?" Chan waved a free hand, gesturing at the room.

"It's my job, silly! Why else?" Hyunjin replied brightly. Chan stated. The more questions he asked the more thoroughly confused he felt. At this point, just letting Hyunjin pet his hair was more preferable to thinking through Hyuniin's vague answers. He blinked wearily.

"Are you sleepy, Channie? Take a shower before we go to bed, okay?" Hyunjin cooed. Chan nodded, half confused, and stuck on 'we'. But his body did his own thing, walking to the bathroom and shutting himself in there. He didn't notice Hyunjin's self-satisfied smile when he came back out, the ends of his hair damp with moisture.

"Come here, Channie," Hyunjin commanded. Chan did as he was told, crawling into the already warm covers. He didn't even question it- Hyunjin grinned as he patted Chan's hair, humming a soft, eery lullaby. Some odd part told Chan to stay awake, but he... Couldn't... Keep his eyes...

The last thing he heard before Hyunjin gently placed his palm over Chan's eyes, was his laugh.

"Sleep well, Channie~ we're going to have so much fun this week, _love_."

Chan's day started with with Hyunjin's voice, coaxing him awake. As he opened his blurry eyes, he was suddenly aware of Hyunjin's smiling face, and his fingers brushing over his cheek- he flinched away, but he didn't miss the way Hyunjin's smile dipped into a scowl before it jumped back to a smile again, as if he had hallucinated him frowning.

"Good morning, Channie," he said brightly. Chan wondered if he didn't return the greeting if he would die. Better to not risk it.

"'morning," Chan mumbled, breaking eye contact with Hyunjin as he attempted to slide out of the bed, _further away from the maniac_ \- only to be pulled back- both by the _clink_ of chains on his wrists- honestly, _what the actual fuck_ \- and Hyunjin's hand as he pulled him off balance.

Hyunjin giggled, pressing Chan down onto the bed, his hair hiding just part of his unwavering, dead stare. "Don't be in a rush, Channie," He was a doll; a living doll that made expressions and sounds of pleasure and amusement, but none of it sparkled in his brown eyes. He only looked at Chan, but even as he spoke to him, so softly, a hint of teasing that seemed more like a threat. He trailed his fingers down the line of Chan's neck, holding him down with one hand and impeccable strength.

And then as if he suddenly decided on it, Hyunjin pressed a lighter to Chan's collarbone.

The latter made a surprise and terrified sound in the back of his throat, "What the fuck- get off!" Chan flinched away from the lighter, as much as one could when they were pinned to the mattress of a hotel room.

Hyunjin acted as though he didn't hear him, "Chan, Channie; which one do you think would leave prettier marks on you? This lighter, or my mouth?" Chan wasn't fond of either option, but Hyunjin was already opening and closing the flame curiously, so Chan mumbled something quickly, his ears heating up into a bright red against his pale skin.

"Hmm? I couldn't catch your answer, Channie," he smiled innocently, undead eyes still a startling and uncomfortable contrast to that smile. If possible, Chan flushed even more.

"I _said_ ," he cringed inwardly, a nervous sound in the back of his throat as Hyunjin leaned in mockingly. "Y-your mouth."

"What about my mouth, Channie?" Hyunjin asked in reply, a smile playing across his lips. This one is mischievous and sadistic, clearly enjoying the discomfort Chan was in.

Chan did another quick check with his pride and his newfound fear of being burned by a spirit- mania, whatever, trying to decide which one was bigger. He didn't like the conclusion he came to.

"I- y-your mouth would make prettier marks," Chan forced out. He prayed that this parade of torturing his inborn pride would soon be over, but Hyunjin wasn't done playing with him.

"Where, though? I can't do anything if I don't know where to start," Hyunjin sang joyfully, looking more and more delighted as Chan squirmed. He flicked the lighter and off again, surely just to remind Chan of the other option. For a brief, nihilistic second, Cha considered choosing the lighter instead. Hyunjin grinned, waving the lighter closer to his cheek. The heat made Chan flinch away.

Self-preservation won out, "On me. Your mouth would make prettier marks on me," his voice broke a bit at last, but he was much happier to see the lighter disappear. Hyunjin hummed, splaying his hand over Chan's chest.

"Pretty," he breathed. Chan wasn't sure whether to be flattered or terrific. He landed on the compromise of being both at the same time as Hyunjin pressed his plush lips to the slight dip of his neck where it met his shoulder. He trailed his tongue over the spot, ever so softly kissing before he started sucking on the spot, pressing his teeth against the skin just enough to bruise the soft white skin into a red, then a violent purple.

Chan silently grieved the loss of his pride; the sound if himself practically begging replaying into a haunting memory as Hyunjin kissed him on the mouth, his lips already swollen. Hyunjin brushed heavy fingers over the fresh hickeys on his collarbone, giggling happily.

"You're so pretty like this, Channie," he mumbled. "Such a good _boy_."

Chan was terrified actually. Why would he be? The chains on his wrist, the unfairly superior strength- Chan considered himself above average though not overly so, but certainly stronger than most- and the casual way he handled the lighter, waving it at him just to watch him break down right in front of him and laughed about it.

Hyunjin waved a hand at the chains, which unlatched themselves. Either some new technology he hadn't heard of before, or suddenly magic existed. Chan painfully hoped it was the first, but something in him already knew it was the latter.

The boy pressed on top of him gave him another of his innocent smiles, "let's eat breakfast, Channie."

Breakfast consisted of room service. Hyunjin let Chan choose the foods, but when all he chose was cereal and a half a sandwich, the mania spirit snatched away the menu in disgust- Chan was just grateful he didn't turn out to be the breakfast.

"Channie. I can't have you wasting away before I have my fun with you," he scolded lightly. If the pretty boy in front of him hadn't waved a lighter in front of his face oh-so-casually, maybe the words would be perceived in a different context. All Chan could think of now was the lighter, the heat of its tiny flame on his skin, burning, and charring. 

They ended up ordering porridge, bamboo shoots, fried tofu, butter toast, and scrambled eggs. They- also know as Hyunjin, but he didn't eat any of it, pushing it all to Chan's side of the small dining table. Chan tried not to be too bothered by his staring, the small smile on his lips, the doll-like eyes, almost glassy in its lifelessness.

And somehow, Chan managed to get some real producing done. Unfortunately, this album probably wouldn't be what he had originally been planning for- Chan produced via inspiration, which was why he had chosen a nice, simple hotel, on the edge of a city but close to the forest, the ocean. Honestly, it was a perfect place; except, now all he had left was a window and the haunting undead eyes of Hyunjin. 

_you are the glass doll sitting pretty_  
_lace all done up, lips all turned up_  
_but in the forest, there hangs a fair lady_

_At least it's a new perspective_ , he thought to himself. 

_Bullshit_ , he answered himself.

_nah, you don't see it wrong because_  
_the bones buried deep are yours and_  
_the colors of your curtains are washed_  
_betting the life in my eyes they were-_

Really, the fact that nothing was happening was more unsettling to him. Hyunjin was keeping his promise to let him work... perhaps? Chan didn't like the slight tremors that went up his spine every tim Hyunjin glanced over his shoulder, seemingly neither interested or registering he was the subject of the words scribble precariously onto paper. Chan was just too into his beats to noticed. Really.

The room was silent until the afternoon. The weather forecasted rain that day, which meant the curtain free window didn't provide any sunlight for him. No matter, he was too used to being locked up for several days at a time working on songs and melodies that his skin was the paleness of a freshly painted wall. 

It was just a couple hours after lunch, an hour after Chan returned from the hotel gym since he refused to give up routines just because of crazy mania spirit. He definitely wasn't expecting it when Hyunjin pulled his chair away from the desk, grabbed him by his calves, and flipped him upside down by them. Chan felt dizzy immediately.

"Hi Channie," Hyunjin said with a voice tone that was far, far too bright; he sounded vaguely like some radio show hosts he had encountered like they were on their fifth coffee of the morning and still wanted to strangle someone. Hyunjin just seemed more like a stabbing kind of guy. "My knife or the lighter?"

Certainly, a step up from hickeys, stab wounds were. 

_you worship her wounds like they're_  
_bruises on your lover's body, her_  
_fair lady, hung up in the crying wind_

"What the fuck?" was Chan's personal choice, as the words fell out of his mouth. The sudden change from sitting to upside down was not doing any wonders to his head other than triggering a memory file of much more colorful curse words than "fuck".

"Knife or lighter, Channie?" Hyunjin repeated, slower this time. 

"Or," Chan replied snarkily. He was in the middle of a good melody, damn it. 

Instead of looking angry, Hyunjin still fixes him with that bright, unruffled smile- like a customer service one, but less pained and more sadistic, "You can choose one, Channie, or I'll just use both. would you like that, Channie?" Well, the obvious answer was absolutely _not,_ but Chan wasn't into either of the two things, so he debated whether he wanted knife wounds or burn wounds. Hyunjin was still looking at him, still holding him upside down.

"At least put me down?" Chan asked, feeling a strain at his temples. Hyunjin proceeds to dump him on the bed, letting him hit it with a muffled thump. He followed Chan down, straddling himself on Chan's lap.

Hyunjin waves the knife and the lifter in his face, "Choose, Channie~"

"Lighter," Chan replied reluctantly. Immediately, the knife disappeared from Hyunjin's hand, leaving the lighter to burn bright with yellow and orange.

Chan left reasonable thought behind Hyujin pressed the flame to the skin of his upper torso. The pain was scorching through him, the color of despair as he struggled against him. He could feel the flame of the lighter move over him, spreading. Even where the lighter was not, he was burning, burning, burning. There was a rag in his mouth. When did that happen? He felt the burning as acutely as he felt the stub of his toe but just so much _worse_.

His screams were trapped behind the rag in his mouth, ruffled and raw in his vocal cords. Hyunjin smiled at him, looking delighted and somehow _alive_. He reached out a hand to put pressure on his raw, _raw_ skin- Chan screamed in the back of his throat.

Let me go let me go let me go let me go let me go let me go let me go let me go let me go let me go let me go let me go let me go let me-

"Good boy," Hyunjin cooed, running a hand over Chan's lips after he pulled out the rag, "We're just getting started."

The burns that rubbed against even Chan's softest, most lightweight shirt were painful. The medicine he had applied to the raw skin had washed away in the pounding wash of the shower, leaving a thin, thin layer of scabbing on the wounds. Hyunjin nuzzled his head into the crook of Chan's neck, blabbering mindless about the boys he had tortured before Chan, describing their every expression with glee and nostalgia. 

Chan wondered if one day, he would too, become one of the dead boys in the stories that Hyunjin told his next victim, eyes glowing as he told him about Chan's raw skin, the way they bled, red and angry because of him.

"The process is all the same, but everyone is so different," Hyunjin hummed. "Seungminnie had the cutest reactions, you know. He never actually cried or screamed or begged. He just looked at me with his puppy eyes, trying not to cry." Hyunjin's giggles would sound sweet if he had not said something so terrifying with such casualness.

Chan didn't like his chances. Hyunjin had already listed several weapons- lighter, butter knives ( for the eyes- ), cleavers. He was just hoping it wasn't the chainsaw's turn. Despite the dread closing around his neck, Chan kept the conversation going, "Process?" he echoed.

Hyunjin played into it like a doll- like the doll he was. "Yes, process," he narrowed his eyes, something vicious and angry and hurt in them. "it reminds me of... what it used to be." 

"Oh," Chan replied. He was confused, to say least. Hyunjin's past- he didn't feel like he could push him for anything more without the pretty boy becoming violent, and seeing his skin was still fresh with angry red burns, Chan wisely decided to not push it as Hyunjin switched to another topic. However, Chan took a mental note to see if he could find anything on the internet later, in the morning, when he had time to himself. 

It was a while before Hyunjin broke his chatter with a simple, "It's ten o'clock, Channie. You should sleep." he pressed a tender kiss to Chan's cheek. If anyone walking into that scene and that scene only, they would've never guessed at Hyunjin had just burned for _fun_ just hours ago. The petty boy, however, acted like he was only Chan's cute lover. Cute? Maybe, if you ignored the violence and bloodlust. Lover? No. For one, Chan wasn't keen on being staying around- _if_ he lived. and two. Well, he was married to his work.

"Goodnight, Channie," Hyunjin said sweetly, little bit more force in his words. Chan watched drowsily as Hyunjin ran his hand through Chan's hair.

"G' night," Channie mumbled involuntarily, just as he passed out, going limp in Hyunjin's arms. The latter smiled, rearranged the collar of Chan's shirt, content to _watch_.

His mind is always crowded with memories- memories he can't get rid of, aren't allowed to get rid of. He remembers them, the feeling of hot iron in his fragile skin- is the screaming his, is the pain his? Or theirs? Either way, he feels all of it, relives the moments again and again and again and again and again and again-

The spiders crawling up his skin, the webs, covering his fingers and painful venom entering his bloodstreams. There are things lost to growing up- lost to him because he's not supposed to remember how it all feels, lest it ruined him. Ironically, he's been reduced to less than a human body, so perhaps it _was_ his ruin _._

Humanity was cruel, but the gods crueler. He had been a toy once and a toy again, made repeat things in his life, retelling them and reliving them through red on fair, untouched skin. He had known no end to his suffering- what was worse, to have his trauma been given to him until his half-death, then to live to watch them cover it in the media, sharing and discussed, relived by their word of mouth? Or was it being the perpetrator, watching the events unfold, every new boy a different ending, different traumas and wounds and ultimately, all of was his- every burn, cut, blinded eye and screaming mouth.

They had only given back his eyes so he could see as well as he heard, each and every scream and twisted expression imprinted and locked away like a portrait in his mind, in an unending hallway of _art_.  
  


In a cold sweat, Chan woke up, bruises and cuts and wounds and phantom limbs that weren't his, burning on him, screams and pleas- all of it burning him alive.

Bang Chan didn't fall asleep again after the nightmare, but it was a fruitless attempt at doing so. when dawn came, chan stopped pretending to be asleep and sat, up, this time much less surprised at the handcuff on his wrist. he pushed away the blanket covering his body and was met with Hyunjin, sitting cross-legged on the bed- wide awake and alert.

"Good morning, Chan," he greeted brightly, leaning forward to touch him. His fingers grabbed the cuff of his shirt, pulling him off balance and towards him. Chan quickly placed his unburnt hands on the bed, lest he toppled straight into Hyunjin's chest. 

Hyunjin didn't let him say anything- or protest for that matter, before he pressed his lips onto his, flicking his tongue into Chan's parted lips. 

He liked to think that he was a strong person, but Hyunjin wasn't a _person_ in the way the word was supposed to be used, and yet the thought failed to console him as his attempts to pull away failed. He squirmed in Hyunjin's hold, both out of discomfort and pain. It was as though Hyunjin had memorized where all the burns were located, or he had just really good luck. 

When he let Chan go, the burns on his abdomen complained, while his lips, red and bruise came apart in breathless pants.

"Hmm, pretty," Hyunjin observed, his empty eyes fixated on Chan's lips. 

Chan tugged at the handcuff on his wrist, mumbling a "good morning" in return because he had no idea what else to say to a mania spirit who had just _kissed him out of_ ** _nowhere_**. Hyunjin however, wasn't fazed as he waved at hand carelessly at the handcuffs and they fell open, leaving Chan free to scoot off the bed. 

A quick inspection in the bathroom's full body mirror told him that the burns would definitely leave him scars if he ever let this place alive. His torso, as well as his thighs, were marked with them, red burning in his flesh and on his skin. He just hoped they would heal over soon. 

As he ate breakfast- something less hearty than the day before- somehow he had managed to get away with it- he pushed the now impending knowledge that something would come up tonight. He just hoped it wasn't the chainsaw yet.

There wasn't much talking between the two of them, but Chan was fine with that, for the most part. Right after breakfast, he slipped away to the hotel's gym, but instead of actually doing his workouts properly, Chan decided to hop on the treadmill and pulled out his phone.

He had already experienced with it- his calls never went through, either disconnecting without reason or not connecting in the first place. It was the same for his text messages and social media. He almost felt like a student using the school computer.

But the internet was a treasure trove of an archive and that was where Chan started.

"Hwang Hyunjin" led him to Facebook, something he entertained for a bit before dismissing it. 

"Hwang Hyunjin death," though, got him several interesting results. Of course, many results were for local newspapers that ran small eulogies, but he also found articles- articles detailing the trial of Hwang Yangsoo and Hwang Gunhan. 

The list of charges against the two men went on, each on more and more horrendous than the last. With a sick realization, Chan realized they looked similar to Hyunjin. As he scanned the article, he slowly realized the trial was for the crimes against their youngest brother- a nineteen-year-old boy when he was discovered in the home of Hwang Gunhan, dead. 

Oxygen suddenly became a lacking source, and it wasn't largely due to the high speed of the treadmill. The article wasn't a comprehensive file of everything that had been admitted to, but even just the summary of it made Chan's stomach churn with disgust and horror. 

He felt like throwing up- and so, he hurried out of the gym into the bathroom, just in time to vomit in a stall. 

"What the _fuck_ ," he whispered to himself, existing frantically out of the webpage and splashing the sink water onto his face in a futile attempt to calm himself. There was something deeply wrong with all that was happening here- so much that he had yet to cover and figure out. Even thinking about finding out the whole truth made him want to be sick again.

Chan wiped the water off his face as he changed out of his gym clothes, patted his paled face in some wayward attempt to make him look like he had finished some grueling workout, and headed upstairs, where his tormentor no doubt waited for him. 

He couldn't really fathom how one could be so cruel to one of their blood and kin, especially someone who was so young and innocent. 


	2. your cover up is caving in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Oh, don't worry, I won't do it to you, Channie! You still have such a pretty future ahead of you, but Seungminnie was going to go work as a kitchen worker anyway, what a waste of his pretty voice, right?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: casal discussion violence, graphic depiction of torture, discussion of death, implications of r*pe

Just like yesterday, Chan's remaining half-completed works were fully focused on the creepier spectrum of subjects, something he had never touched before. Most of his music was about growing up, mental health- not just depression or anxiety, class differences- topics that were often seen as sensitive in mainstream media. 

Expect now, he couldn't focus on his work. Hyunjinn had greeted him at the door, his fingertips brushing against Chan's cheekbone. The realization that Hyunjin was _dead_ was a terrifying one, something that just made him shiver. The image he had of the young boy was changing until it was like a double in front of him- a tormentor and a victim at the same time, yet two different beings. 

As he played mindlessly with his instrumentals, switching around the snare track while the bass drum played in mezzo-forte, he could feel Hyunjin's eyes on him, watching patiently. Chan wasn't sure what was so interesting about watching him put together his instrumentals, but maybe he had yet to have a singer / rapper-songwriter as a victim. If he was Hyunjin, maybe he'd understand the appeal more. 

His notes app ( which meant the place where all his miscellaneous lyrics ideas were stored ) showed the results of his short 24 hours and ongoing stay in Hyunjin's local torture hotel room. It wasn't really fun, because Chan planned to finish an album undisturbed not find out unspeakable things about the history of a dead boy who was now a mania. 

The universe did not want him to finish his album. He'd visit a temple to get rid of whatever demons that haunted him, but he was stuck with one, and there was no telling whether or not he'd live to drive himself to a temple to get himself exorcised or something along those lines. Truly, a first world problem.

Chan leaned back into the chair with a slow sigh, running his fingers through his blonde hair with a frustrated frown. 

"Hyunjin," he said, hoping to hide the secrets he had discovered from his voice. "Is watching me arrange music that interesting?"

The question earned a soft, amused hum from Hyunjin, though Chan didn't need to spin around in the poor excuse of an office chair to know that the amusement would reach Hyunjin's doll eyes. 

He heard the soft creak of the bedsprings as Hyunjin moved off the blankets, "Yeah, I've never had a composer around. Seungminnie had a pretty voice though. Too bad I pulled out his vocal cords, you would have _loved_ him."

"Right." Chan righted shortly, mostly terrified by the part where he casually blew by how he had just _pulled out his vocal cords_. His throat itched, and Chan swallowed down the distasteful bile. 

Hyunjin's giggle was too bright for someone so violent, "It's okay, I made sure to patch his wound up so it wouldn't look hideous. You couldn't even tell that he had no voice to use!" 

Well, _that_ sentence made Chan flinch visibly. 

Hyunjin, who was always ever attentive to Chan's reactions and actions, of course, didn't miss that full-body flinch. His lips curled up into something sinister while his eyes still stayed dead and empty. Chan would likely never get over those eyes, the way they bore into his soul and through him at the same time.

"Oh, don't worry, I won't do it to you, Channie! You still have such a pretty future ahead of you, but Seungminnie was going to go work as a kitchen worker anyway, what a waste of his pretty voice, right?"

Chan didn't try to bring up that he would still need a voice to communicate with his fellow employees, but perhaps his more human insight blinded him to the logic of a mania. He debated on bringing it up, but he didn't get the chance to- Hyunjin switch subjects as fast as he got onto them.

"I want to hear the song! Please?" He tugged lightly at Chan's arm, fingers wrapped around a burn like a harsh reminder of where he was and the power imbalance between them. Chan wordlessly hit play.

Hyunjin was entranced by the first drop of the beat. Somehow, he ended up in Chan's lap, surprising light for someone so strong, but where was the logic in his current predicament? nowhere to be seen.

Hyunjin's excitement was that of a child- he flew by things so easily, and was quick to laugh or giggle; with a start, Chan realized that Hyunjin acted much like a child- a violent child who seemed to understand a certain limit of sexual action. Chan wondered, with a sick lurch in his stomach if the behaviors he displayed were a result of a loss of childhood. He was not allowed to grow and change, and so, subsequently, he was stuck at a child's mentality. 

Chan's hand curled into a fist at Hyunjin's waist, forgetting for the moment what the boy sitting on his lap was. 

Chan didn't know how he did it, but Hyunjin fell asleep listening to instrumentals that were heavily soft rock and trap-inspired. On his lap, none the less. He had no idea how to feel about this, or whether or not he should wake him up. - But it was a good thing, right? He wouldn't be in danger of who knows what tonight. Unless he woke up.

_Hyunjin was dreaming of a past that was no longer his._

The older- or rather, the more mature of the two, as Hyunjin had been dead for four years and had technically stopped again ever since, gently picked up the one on his lap. Hyunjin's head rolled to rest on his shoulder, looking somehow even more innocent. His features were on the edge of maturing, but he'd yet grown into his features. - Though admittedly, he was pretty. There was no doubt about it. 

_He watched, as two men- no, they were only teenagers, barely- entered a room. 2002 seemed light years away for what experiences he had been given but he watched the scene with a faintly erratic heartbeat, panic starting to worm its way into his heart._

Chan flicked the blankets away to place Hyunjin on the bed, completely unaware of the other's movements. He curled into himself a bit, but otherwise tranquil as Chan covered him in a blanket. - It was such an odd contrast to the first complete day here that Chan wondered if he was just going crazy. His burns certainly hurt, but they were concrete, something that could be explained with logic, unlike the mania spirit sleeping in the only bed in the room. How did Hyunjin become a mania? Why? Where did fantastical elements and the otherworldly even come into play? There were no answers but Chan's questions only continued to grow.

_He knew- or, had an inkling of what would happen. He hated this- falling asleep was a human thing, sticking with him like the scent of skunk spray into the void between life and death. He couldn't wake up on his own. - All he could do was watch as two boys, hold their mother's patch kit- their mother, not his- enter a room, where he knew a child would be, the knuckles on his hands just freshly bandaged with cartoon band-aids by his kindergarten teacher._

As quietly as possible, Chan moved away from Hyunjin's bed, sat down on the chair of his makeshift studio desk but instead of continuing his music, he opened a browser on his phone. 

_His scenery changed from the hallway of an older house to the bedroom the two boys had just entered. A small boy- only five- or maybe, had he just been four? He could remember the sting of needles on his body- could remember denying that he told the teacher anything when she asked._

_He promised, swore, that he didn't say a word. Even as blood swelled up and his sobs were muffled with scratchy cloth, and all he could feel was pain and pain be there were needles, in his flesh,_

_Through it all._

He had saved several pages on the case, and he found a podcast on it as well. Chan put in his earbuds to listen, searching through pages of information on the internet as he attempted to soak up all the information.

_His dream changed- why were they so clear? Weren't dreams supposed to be unorganized and blurry? Hyunjin felt sick, realizing that now he was no longer watching as a bystander- no, he was in the body of Hwang Yangsoo. He could feel the sick pleasure of him- "Hyung"- as much as it was his own and that was enough to make anyone vomit._

Hyunjin shifted on the bed, making Chan paused out of nervousness. He didn't look back, tried to pretend that he was reading an odd book from his library that he hadn't touched in days, but Hyunjin didn't give up so he kept searching, listening as he continued to recoil, time and time again by the story the person retold, just in less graphic details. 

_With the way that he could access Yangsoo-hyung's thoughts, Hyunjin wished he could take a knife to his immortal body and make himself unable to hear, to feel, to think- lay there, not a corpse, but not alive enough to have thoughts to haunt him._

_He never did comprehend why big brother wanted to see him cry time and time again because of the pain he was causing- but now, it looked so simple: for his own sick pleasure- to get off on the crying of a child._

Chan had been mentally prepared for a lot of information. Photos and audiotapes had been recorded and released. What he was not expecting though, for the details of the case to come back to him- he hadn't thought much of the name Hwang Hyunjin, it was a common name. He had been prepared for terrible things. 

Yet he wasn't prepared to remember the pile of files that he had come across in his father's office- who was a lawyer, detailing the case evidence for a dead boy named Hwang Hyunjin. At that time, he didn't inquire about it, because his father was visibly distraught by the case ( and when he was distraught or frustrated, his temper was erratic )- plus, he was busy with completing school. 

Who knew? Some things came back full circle. 

Hwang Hyunjin has always lived his life in fear and building tolerance for pain. He's learned, faster than anyone, that cries for help and defiance got nowhere. His compliance had also worn him down, but the alternative, in his young mind, was worse. In hindsight, he would tell his younger self- was he really younger? Hyunjin was stuck in an infinite time loop he couldn't escape- that death wasn't so bad. It was a lonely, floating thing. You didn't really exist but your soul wasn't gone. Hyunjin had a felt a pull to something, another plane before something else jerked him back on this filthy earth. 

Groggy, he awoke to himself tucked tightly into the bed. For a long moment, he thought he was bound in heavy chains, waiting to be dumped into turbulent waters over and over again. Panic flared back in his chest in a silent scream. 

That was before he registered the softness of the blankets, the dim scent of laundry, and hotel room service bringing his mind from human to spirit faster than he could squash any feeling of panic.

He glanced at Chan, blonde hair and strong shoulders- with his back to him. Hyunjin had probably fallen asleep. He didn't remember anything beyond listening to the unfinished music on his computer, and some strange, cozy feeling he couldn't place. It wasn't a feeling he was familiar with.

Casting that thought away, Hyunjin softly shifted out of the bed, paddling over to Chan as quietly as he wanted. With still a bit of sleepiness, he wrapped his arms around the other's shoulder, and mumbled, "What time is it, Channie?"

Chan jumped, and so did the sound he was playing with. He shifted his head to look at Hyunjin, then the time on his phone, "You slept for about three hours. It's 4:29 pm." Hyunjin notices, genuinely, for the first time, that Chan's eyes are bright, alive. They have a spark to them, despite his less than ideal situation here. It's weird though, how little things like that make him pause.

The knife manifested in his hand anyway. He doesn't really know how he could get the weapons. He could simply will them into existence.

A thin line of blood appeared on Chan's neck, in the perfect line of the knife's sharp edge. The man stiffened, froze, his eyes darting to Hyunjin's face with nervousness, but not surprised. A smile curved up Hyunjin's lips- he learned fast. 

"I'm in a bit of a mood," Hyunjin drawled lazily. "maybe you can help me get rid of it, _Channie_."

"No thanks," Chan said, still sitting docilely in the office chair. It almost makes him laugh, the fervent resistance, contrasting with the meekness in his posture. Hyunjin flips him off the chair with the hook of his arm, moving the knife away in case of decapitation occurred. That wouldn't do. He wouldn't get another toy to play until another had passed- that was always the most boring part. 

Chan fought, this time, much less docile and confused than the last time. Hyunjin supposed it was to be expected. Not many people could be threatened with a knife and be calm. Despite that though, he clicked his tongue disapprovingly, tossing the knife into the air before catching it effortlessly by the grip. 

It's a subtle, but unnerving show of power on his part; Hyunjin has the control here because he's the one with the sharp edge and Chan is just the poor, foolish human who walked into his room. It had been a perfect year after Eric, his pretty little pup. Really, if Chan hadn't opened the door, Hyunjin would've brute forced his way through his restrictions and grabbed an employee. 

His first cuts are shallow. It's really, _really_ easy to pin Chan to the ground with his unnatural powers, but watching him struggle under him is amusing. It absolutely makes nearly cutting the main artery on his neck worth it. 

After that, Chan mostly protects his neck from injury. fine by Hyunjin, he wasn't in a hurry to decapitate or kill him. Besides, he'd once stabbed Jinyoung-hyung there; the amount of blood spray was too messy for his taste. 

The first cuts were exactly where Chan's barely healed burns were, digging less into the skin but into the flesh, prying shallow bits and Chan bit his lips hard enough to bleed. Something like a pained groan escapes anyway and Hyunjin smiled, satisfied.

It got worse, for Chan. To Hyunjin, this was amusement, a way to pass his time, for however long he was stuck here. 

Chan writhes as Hyunjin stabs the tip of the knife in his leg, twisting viciously whilst the man screamed profanities. He pulled it out just as fast as he had struck, watching red bleed out from the wound before he diverted his interest to Chan's flat stomach. 

Because he was bored and he hadn't had another muscular toy since Changbin- _god_ , he missed his Binnie, who always attempted some sort of peace between them. He was cute, in that peacemaker sort of way- Hyunjin turned the sharp blade of his knife to his toned muscles.

Suffice to say, Chan wouldn't be working out anymore, during his stay. 

The only upside to nearly bleeding death that Chan could find was at least Hyunjin helped him bandaged up everything. He wasn't sure how the boy could get ahold of a tourniquet for his leg, but though he wasn't sure it was necessary, he allowed him to adjust it, just in case that particular blow would be the death of him. 

Psyche wise, if Chan hadn't gone through his military turned lawyer father's harsh method of raising his son ( personally, Chan thought he would've done fine staying at the military as a drill sergeant, but he supposed lawyers also used that heavy, opposing presence to a degree ) or the depressingly negative feedback he'd received when he just started his career officially, he would probably be in a state of shock and confusion. 

Chan did panic a bit, wishing he had his father on the emergency dial to hear his recollection of the case. The internet was helpful, but not as helpful as the lawyer who had worked on the case.

Briefly, Chan wondered if Hyunjin knew his brothers were handed life sentences, his mother was in jail for the next fifty years of his life or that several documentaries, articles, interviews, whatever media you could think of, had covered this case. He wondered if Hyunjin cared that however dully, the system had set down the corruption in its blood and gave him the lawful justice.

Personally, Chan would've rather seen them tossed in a torture cellular but that was not for him to judge. 

Showering wasn't an option tonight. Instead, Chan ran a slightly rough, soaked towel over his skin and face, hoping that would just last him the week, if he made it that far. 

Chan didn't try to eat much for his dinner. he didn't know if his... _literally_ shredded abdominal muscles could take the work of swallowing. You would be surprised what activities involved your core when said core muscles injured. 

Getting into bed seemed like some sort of sick joke- he wasn't sure if he wanted to bare the random stabs of pain- no pun intended- in his abdomen every time he tossed around. He just might as well take to the couch instead.

That was Chan's plan. 

At least until Hyunjin picked him up and simply tossed him onto the bed himself. A real charmer, he was, wasn't he?

"Sleep, Channie~" Hyunjin cooed, settling himself at the foot of the bed, in perfect view of Chan's position. "You'll need it." 

Chan glanced sullenly at his bandages, dotted with fresh red and oxidized brown, and replied in a voice that was half-annoyed and half-resigned, "I imagine I do need it, after almost being stabbed to death."

"You'll live, Channie," Hyunjin comforted, without any understanding of the word, but Chan couldn't blame him for it. "I know what I'm doing! I won't make any possibly fatal wounds until it's time, trust me."

_Comforting_.

Chan adjusted himself as Hyunjin spoke up again, filling a minute of silence, "By the way, what were you looking up? You seemed rather into it."

A million things swirled in Chan's mind- panic, surprise, fear, excuses- but he paused, swallowed all of them, and simply said, "Mythology, why?"

A smile, amused by empty, spread across Hyunjin's pink lips like a slow spill of blood out a wound, "Oh, really? Were you looking up information about my kind? You can just ask, Channie!" Hyunjin's head went, _tilt_ , _tilt_ , _tilt_. 

"Unless you were looking at the articles about my hyungs?"

Chan's world stopped. 

Hyunjin's dead, unnerving and steady stare fixed him in place, the same smile still etched onto his lips, frozen in place. He looked like a doll, the one that Chan burned into his hard drive along with bass drops in the pre-chorus. He looked like a doll, a doll that had been revived to make nightmares real for more than just him.

"No," Chan managed to push out. It felt like herculean effort- dimly, he wondered if Hercules would feel offended and if he was going to die tonight. "I don't know what you're talking about. You have older brothers?"

" _Had_ , Channie," Hyunjin sang, unfrozen. He moved towards Chan, settling onto his wounded thighs. "I'm technically dead, remember? Don't lie to me. I know everything about what you've done in this hotel. Although, I'm flattered you can feel any compassion for my... case. How's your father doing? He fought so hard for a dead boy."

"You _stalked_ me?" Chan asked incredulously, fear temporarily forgotten. "How? Why do you know about my father?" 

Hyunjin sounded bored when he answered, "The old divine, supernatural powers. A sixth sense? You choose, Channie. You're mortal, Channie, you don't have to think too hard about my world. Just call it magic- isn't that what little kids always say when they see something they didn't understand?"

"You're a kid too," Chan said quietly. "You never got the chance to grow up." 

"Tragic," Hyunjin tossed the accusation aside, but Chan felt the tension of his muscles. "Why does it matter? Do you feel sorry for me?"

It was a casual question, but Chan figured that Hyunjin's emotional bandwidth- if there was any of it left- was very thin. His answer could kill him. Ironically, he could live with that. 

"I feel sorry for the boy who went through it, but not for the Hyunjin who's sitting on me," Chan began. Hyunjin smiled, bright but joyless. "I would like to survive this week. But I also want to know why you ended like this-" he waved a hand at the hotel room in a vague gesture. "stuck here, as a manic. What's the driving emotion that chained you...?"

Hyunjin laughed, a mellow, sweet, yet eerily and cold sound that echoed throughout the room like the swing of a pendulum. 

Then he put a knife to Chan's throat.


	3. the bones arise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whooooo last chapter!!! thank you to everyone who picked this up this was my first time writing smth more blatantly horrific so i hope i didn't do yall too dirty <3
> 
> tw/cw: reliving trauma, knife/dagger, physical & verbal abuse, mentions of blood, stabbing, implied death of one or more characters, talk of r*pe

With a knife at his neck for the second time in a single day, Chan defaulted to the trick that had kept him alive last time ( also known as a few hours ago ): freeze. Although admittedly being dead was probably better than being alive in his battered body, he still had some self-preservation instincts. 

"You want to know, Channie?" Hyunjin mocked. "I'm sure you're smart enough to figure it out yourself. Why don't you tell _me_?" 

For a moment, Chan's brain stuttered its way through the knee-deep pile of information all pertaining to Hwang Hyunjin in a miniature crisis. Then he looked at the hilt of the knife that was held to his neck- a rather luxurious gold, carved into the shape of an intricate snake and a crow- or a raven perhaps, he didn't really know the difference, the wings of which stretched to become the crossguard. He thought about the symbolism of crows he'd come upon during one of the uncountable times he'd been scrolling through increasingly random information and found it rather ironic; he was certainly in a bad spot and Hyunjin was most definitely dead. 

The point of the dagger dug a little deeper into the skin of his throat. Chan, who had never tested the give of his throat before, quickly filed through everything he'd learned in a short few hours with the lightning processing speed of someone who could be dying very soon. 

"The investigators predicted that abuse stemmed from a young age, perhaps somewhere around the elementary age," the blade digging into his throat came lax with a drop of blood on its tip. Chan continued. "They started... with abuse of power. The brothers made their little brother into what was basically a slave and then started hitting him with anything they could reach. The autopsy crew found shards of glass in the body."

Hyunjin had gone still. The lopsided, mad smile disappearing off his face. It felt like an atomic bomb had been dropped into the space that sat between Chan, a quick death, and Hyunjin, ticking, ticking, _ticking_. 

"Keep going," he said, sounding exceeding bored. Chan doubted the boredom was real. 

He looked for words that could describe the horrors that had been detailed in the court transcript, "He was often- pierced with needles. One of them would get the sewing needle from their mother's kit and start-" he wanted to choke. Hyunjin silently pointed the dagger at his throat again. 

"He grew up with increasingly worsening trauma. Experts believe that his parents were neglectful, which was why the older brothers managed to get away with their cruelty for so long. he was starved at times and then overfed. On a good day, he could eat something stale. On a bad day, it was rotten or poisoned or nothing at all."

"Poor him," Hyunjin mocked, too cheerful, too easily."You can shut up now, Channie."

He should listen; that was the smart move to make, what with the knife still spinning between Hyunjin's thin fingers. But Chan studied Hyunjin's smiling visage and couldn't comprehend how he could push away all the trauma and react to it with only violence. There had been something else underneath it, dead or not. Hyunjin made sense to Chan, in an awful, wretched way. 

"You're a mania of pain," Chan said finally. The faintest gleam of surprise, then fascination showed in Hyunjin's undead eyes. It wasn't really an encouragement to elaborate, but he pushed on, pretending that it was indeed that. He had yet to lift the dagger and kill him, so that was a good sign. "You were never given a chance to taste vengeance or hatred, or to process your trauma, so the only thing that could tie you back earth is pain."

"So smart," Hyunjin mused. "You're correct, Channie? Ding, ding, ding! Or whatever. Did you want a reward for your ability to comprehend? I'm sure you received so much love from your father."

Chan had hit a nerve. Definitely, before the dagger had stilled, the knuckles wrapped around the hilt becoming whiter than the sheets of the bed. Ignoring the fact that Hyunjin somehow knew Chan's personal life enough to specifically comment on his father, Hyunjin looked like it was taking all of his control to not slash Chan's throat.

Thinking about how it was probably partly because he wouldn't like how messy and untrustworthy the method didn't make it any better. 

"My relationship with my father is fine," Chan replied. He wanted to add _unlike yours_ , but it didn't seem like the reply that earn him his life. 

Hyunjin looked amused at the poor attempt to brush his bloodless strike as he leaned into Chan's personal space more than he usually did with a wicked smile. "I'm sure it's lovely, Channie," he hummed casually. "That must mean you don't mind this, do you?" he placed his hand on Chan's chest, finger splayed over the covered burn scars. " _Sleep_ , Channie. I'm sure your father would love to see you again in your nightmares."

Chan slept, as Hyunjin had commanded. He didn't have much choice in the matter; supernatural powers lulled him under without his consent with a sickening sweet whisper against the shell of his ear. He would comment on how creepy it was, but he was already asleep. 

_He was twelve again, standing stiff by the door of his father's office. the back of his hands stung red. His father's face was smoky with anger, the fine lines that framed his eye deepening. He certainly wasn't young anymore- when Chan was just entering second grade, his father had still been a soldier, fresh-faced and without scars. Now, there was a sharp cut on his forearm and the graze of a bullet on his cheek. As a lawyer, it made him look all the more fearsome._

_As Chan's father, it meant strict ideals._

_"You didn't report your sisters sneaking out when you knew. Now all three of them are in revealing clothes and out in the dark. Why didn't you say something?" Chan wasn't sure why not telling his parents was a bad idea; for one, they weren't wearing heels. Second, all of his older sisters were well-versed in martial arts. Even if someone was trying to grab them, they would be okay. Eldest sister even had a taser in her bag for emergencies- Chan had watched her put them in along with an army swiss knife. He was also pretty sure the second eldest sister's bag held a pair of brass knuckles._

_Chan answered honestly, "Noona had everything they needed, they would be okay. They said they weren't drinking."_

_Not a good enough answer for his father, but his mother, who was watching anxiously, cracked a smile. Chan had probably blind faith in his older sisters' strengths, but his father didn't, evident by the finger he put in his face._

_"Is going out allowed without alerting the family?" he asked. Chan knew this voice- this was the voice he had something to prove to his son._

_"No sir."_

_"What did your sisters do?"_

_"They told me, sir," Chan replied. Cheek. It got him a slap. He was sure it would be red again, and swell up. If he wanted to look normal at school tomorrow, he would have to put ice on it before bed, if he was allowed to go to bed tonight. Being told to stay awake on the balcony was equally boring as it was cold._

_"That's not good enough. They may be in a group of three, but they are not infallible, do you understand this? Nevermind them, but you lied by omission," his father scolded. Chan privately thought about his father's stories of covering for his comrades in combat and at the army base, and wondered why he wasn't allowed to do the same for his sisters. He didn't voice it, in case both his cheeks would swell tonight._

_"Yes sir," he said._

_His father glowered one last time, "Go stand outside and don't come inside until I say you can."_

_Chan went._

_He was fifteen, belt lashes on his back burning. He couldn't quite remember the original reason for them; he was pretty sure it was because he had let his 98% slip to a 95% in the last two months- exactly in the range of A-. Korean schooling systems were brutal, much more brutal than Australia, but it was no contest. His father added more sentences to his belt lashes with every whisper of pain._

_the balcony was cold enough to turn the tips of his fingers blue that night. he remembered it well, standing outside, staring at the moon and wondering when the sun would come up, remembering how each hour ticked by and he could no longer fell his fingers too well, then his entire hand before six o'clock rolled around, and his hands and feet were blue, bluer than the color of his sister's favorite dress, an ombre of purple, and black at the tips._

_He remembered the hospital in faint snatches. Chan remembered thinking about how he was missing a test, mumbling it for his mother, who looked like she wanted to cry. he remembered seeing his sisters rushing in right after school to look for him. by then, he was looking better, less a snowman and more human- frosty the snowman come true if he'd become more than snow._

_When they came in their school uniforms, long disheveled hair and backpacks bouncing, Chan knew he had missed his test._

_It was his senior year of high school, and he was the last one of the siblings to graduate by age. one sister was now a resident ( Chan silently thanked whatever higher being that allowed him leeway, because he didn't need to be a doctor; noona would be in charge of that ) and the other an engineer in men dominated field. Chan visited her with lunch because hanging out with his sister was a lot more interesting than sitting in the cafeteria with everyone's stressed energy surrounding him. Finals and college entrance exams were hell._

_At home, his father was busy in his office all time. According to his mother, he'd picked up a particularly emotionally and mentally draining case. He didn't remember much of the details, locking himself up in his bedroom under the excuse of studying. Mainly, it was to avoid his father's fluctuating temper._

_Chan was in his office once, just to call him out for dinner. He caught a glimpse of photos in his father's open folder. He saw blood, blood, blood, and black and blue fingertips, the same coloring as him from when he stood out on the balcony._

_His mind zeroed in on the mangled limbs and wide-open eyes, empty of any emotion. It was as if the victim had lived their life like this- there was no longer fear in their bloodstream, there was no desperation left. It was as if they had died before their body could._

_And then his father closed the folder._

_He had come back from a trip abroad- he'd been invited to produce for a well-known artist. This would be the first meal he'd had with his family for a while since he decided to pursue his goal of becoming a producer._

_The moment Chan stepped into his childhood home, felt the frigid aura of his father, he knew it would not be a fun dinner in the slightest. His father was strict at best, helicopter controlling at worst. He didn't want to be a doctor, or lawyer, or engineer- he wanted to be surrounded by music._

_Of course, his choice of career had to be nitpicked and belittled and compared to his sisters, who looked supremely uncomfortable. Chan honestly blocked out all of it while he ate, but the last words his father spoke, he remembered clearly._

_"What a disgrace."_

While Hyunjin watched, Chan slept through memories and nightmares the same. Chan didn't toss around or cry as the others did; he only shifted uncomfortably, like he's sleeping on a bed of nails, and furrows the space between his eyebrows. His face color doesn't change, nor does he forcefully wake up. The hand nearest to Hyunjin twitched the slightest bit in the middle of the night as if reaching for him. 

Idly, Hyunjin wanted to cut it off. 

It's an impulse that he often had- the humans called it an intrusive thought, apparently, although he would admit he had succumbed to it more than once. He would keep them, but he had no room for souvenirs in this room. 

Hyunjin placed the dagger- the very one he'd cut Chan with- away in its decorated sheath, half-hidden under his shirt. that was something deeply jarring about having something pressed against his thigh, instead of gone into space and time before he summoned it again to his hand. It made him feel real- a living breathing human, just forever nineteen. Like he had a chance at life, free from his old world. 

_No_ , his dead brothers would say, _you're human, just an object for entertainment and nothing else._

He narrowed his eyes against those thoughts and turned away from Chan's sleeping body to walk up to the roof. Most of the residents of this hotel were all asleep now- it was just him, him, and the polluted night sky.

"Four years in human years," Hyunjin whispered, sounding bored. A soft wind blew locks of hair away from his face in answer. He tucked a lock back. "Too many to count to this internal clock." Hyunjin pressed a hand to his chest as if he could feel the metal of a clock under his skin, ticking at a speed that wasn't human. He wasn't human, so that would explain it. Just the shell of one.

He watched the sunrise, rising up halfway up to the world before he headed back down to his hotel room, taking light steps to the bed, leaning over Chan's sleeping figure. His dark locks fell forward with him, dangling between them. He looked peaceful now as if the memories didn't bother him so much anymore. Hyunjin wondered what kind of childhood Chan had. 

Flicking a hand to release the command he had on Chan, Hyunjin straightened and sat back down onto the spot he had occupied the last few nights with Chan around. He waited patiently for Chan to stir naturally, unbothered by the empty, lifeless stillness of the room. After all, he was part of it- its dead, unanswering complacency. 

Hyunjin looked at him, thinking of last night, the shattered memories that came to the surface with every word that came forced out of Bang Chan's mouth. It was the first time one of his victims had dug into him.

"It's too bad," Hyunjin murmured to himself, a gentle maniac's smile creeping up his lips. "We could've had so much more fun for a little longer." His hand gripped creamy white blankets of the bed, tainting and marking a cloudy grey underneath his drained fingertips. In his eyes was the roof, where the wind whipped through his ghostly hair. 

A memory dragged itself out of the depths of buried trauma, darkening his expression.

_"Isn't the view up here nice, Hyunjinnie?" which brother was it that said this? Maybe it didn't matter, because they were the same people to him. He struggled weakly with his bruised throat in his grip, his feet hanging off the edge. "Wouldn't it be fun if I accidentally dropped you? Too bad our parents sponsor this stupid high school."_

Oh, his picture-perfect family. 

Around a half-hour later, Chan started to wake up. It was in the little twitches and the change of breathing pattern as he blearily opened his eyes. Hyunjin waved cheerily when his eyes landed on him.

"Good morning, Channie!" 

There was an obvious grimace as Chan sat up, looking so much messier than he usually did. Ironically, he'd gotten the most sleep he'd ever gotten in the past few days, but he also woke up fully aware of the danger that came with his unexpected roommate. He didn't think it would take a crazy mania to make him catch up on a fraction of lost sleep, but the world held all sorts of different solutions, or whatever. 

"Morning, I guess?" he replied warily. His memory of last night was blurry, swimming in front of him tauntingly yet so out of reach. He was pretty sure he was wide awake, but anything helpful ended with Hyunjin's decorated dagger at his throat. 

But now, as he stared down the point of it again, it seemed he would also begin his day with the same dagger at his throat again. Apparently, repetition in the face of death did not make things feel less dangerous. 

He wasn't sure how or when Hyunjin managed to put it in front of him faster than he could register it. Chan was pretty sure that kind of speed would be only possible with a lot of training, and no offense, Hyunjin didn't seem like he had the time to be training- or had anyone to oversee that training. It was actually terrifying, the assertion of power that Hyunjin could display at a whim, but Chan grew up with his military turned lawyer of a father, some things- while more adrenaline pounding than his father- was just not enough to awaken the numbed emotions in him. 

In other words, half of his reaction to fatalistic danger was also fatalistic humor. 

"Why don't we go up to the rooftop for a bit today?" Hyunjin suggested- but anyone with even bits of their brain cells left could tell it was not a suggestion, but a command. His heart pounded in his ears, every little sound suddenly perceivable to his human eardrums. "It's quite chilly today though, you should dress."

Chan's eyes flicked to the open suitcase in the furthest corner of the hotel room, "Okay... maybe let me get my clothes first?" Hyunjin smiled something otherworldly threatening, and lower the dagger. Chan slid off the bed, ignoring the wounds that complained when he tensed his muscles. The suitcase full of clothes would never return to its home, Chan could feel in the int heaviest places of his gut. 

He walked into the bathroom, and Hyunjin didn't follow. 

Chan looked at the mirror, smiling grimly at the mess of a face staring back at him, "You're so dead," those words didn't seem quite real, even saying them out loud to himself. They were true- they should be. 

He struggled with the clothes, every wrong twitch pulled at bit at wound trying to scab and heal. It seemed absolutely fruitless for him to bother with it, but Chan found himself going slow. Vaguely, he wondered if his hoodie was good enough to block the wind. It probably was.

Hyunjin was waiting patiently on the bed- just as Chan had left him, the dagger nowhere to be seen. He wasn't wearing anything new, but he smiled brightly at Chan, gesturing for him to follow him out the door. Chan did, which curiosity. 

He watched as Hyunjin ignored the people in the hallway, the same the people seemed to treat him as air. Internally, Chan observed- without surprise- that he was probably invisible to everyone else in the hotel. They walked their way to the back, where Hyunjin unlatched a door to reveal steps that led upwards. 

He turned back to Chan with a humorous smile, "You'll love it up here, Channie. I'm sure many would _kill_ for a view like this." Only one of them found it funny, and it wasn't Chan. 

They walked up the steps to the roof- the view _was_ beautiful, the wind blowing his curly hair away from his face. Hyunjin hopped up to the edge, staring down the world like a child who knew no pain. There was something lively in his face- something _human_ and not monstrous. Chan watched, then shook his head, ridding himself of the thought. 

Hyunjin walked back to Chan, "My brother brought me here, to this hotel once. For a vacation, he said. I think he meant a vacation for him," Hyunjin tilted his head. "It wasn't a good vacation for me. I kept bleeding down there, but he wouldn't stop. You know, Channie, you slept on the same bed he touched me on. Is it comfortable?"

_Fuck_. 

His back was cold, cold with the knowledge- maybe whoever said "ignorance is bliss" was right, because Chan certainly would've been perfectly happy _not_ knowing. It must've shown in his expression, the inexplicable distress ( how could it not? Chan had never prided himself in his ability to hide his feelings ) because Hyunjin smiled at him, vicious and sharp. He looked carefree as if these human woes couldn't touch him- no, that was wrong; it _could_ touch him, but Hyunjin was too far disconnected from it to feel it so harshly that he'd let it show. Chan wondered, painfully, if it was harder to exist within his limits than it was before this.

"How do you live in that room?" Cahn whispered. If this was a movie, then he might've been staggering. Hyunjin shrugged, stepping closer. Chan stared at him, the photos of that crime scene offsetting his vision.

"It's the only familiar place in this world. That house is gone now, Channie," He said. It was sick reasoning on his part- there were few places Hyunjin would've known on this earth, where everything had been taken from him. 

Hyunjin grabbed Chan by the folds of his shirt, pulling him off-center, towards. Something dug into his abdomen, cold and cruel. Hyunjin's dagger, its hilt engraved with that haunting snake and raven duo pulled away with blood on its metal edge. 

"You're really cute, Channie. It's just people like always think you can save someone, when you can't," which was odd for Hyunjin to say, considering he was stabbing him full of fresh wounds. Chan struggles, the veins in his arms straining and he fought Hyunjin. "Maybe I'll kill you the same way I was."

Something wasn't right. His mind was flipping back between the pain and Hyunjin's words. Something about this scene was wrong- it didn't match up. And there were the engravings on the dagger- the raven and the snake- maybe it was a crow? 

"But you didn't die like this. They took an ax and bashed in your head." Chan gasped out. "There was so much blood-" Hyunjin's widened. It would be almost comedic- of course, Chan would know what was the fatal blow. There was so much blood. "They've never done something to wound to that degree. You set them off somehow. In Aesop's fable, you were the snake and they were the crows-"

"Stop talking," Hyunjin's voice was dangerously low. "You weren't there, you don't know what happened."

"Then why is your dagger engraved with a raven and a snake?" Chan pushed. The pain was definitely making him delirious. In any normal circumstances- which this wasn't, he wouldn't be this impulsive, this danger seeking. He was dying anyway, right? "How many times has a crow been mistaken for a raven?" Hyunjin twisted the very dagger into his gut once again, forcing Chan to bite his lips until they too, bled. he felt like the protagonist of some illogical thriller book, hanging off the edge of life and death. 

"You're _too_ smart, Channie Chan Chan," Hyunjin mocked. "Has anyone taught you when not to all? I'm sure your father has, hasn't he? Tell me then, what did I do to make hyung murder me?"

_He keeps saying hyung, singular_. Chan thought idly. _But there are two of them standing trial. He knows that_. 

So what happened to the other brother? 

Chan stayed silent, and Hyunjin's smile grew, "You don't know, do you, Channie? Do you want me to tell you? It's quite simple, really! A school employee saw him grab me by the neck the day before- he called the police and everything. Hyung was _so_ close to getting caught. I guess it was my fault that they had to pay a little bit of bail and bribe for hyung to get out, but he never did end up free though right?" Hyunjin's smile was terrible, bright, and humorous in a situation that wasn't such.

"So he was the eggs that you destroyed," Chan said carefully. Hyunjin smiled, and he was still losing blood, so much of it. but there was something else in it. Maybe it wasn't a fable. Chan looked at the edge of the roof- they were dangerously close to it.

"One for death," Chan said out loud- the verse hitting him with the force of a hurricane wind. "A snake for rebirth." Hyun withdrew the dagger, pushing it into where his liver laid. Chan threw up blood from his mouth, red inking his mouth and chin as he stared at Hyunjin. His hand grasped Hyunjinneck, thinking of the maneuvers his father had shown him when he was still young when he wasn't beaten down into the fierce father he knew today. 

He put his weight into Hyunjin, onto the dagger still in his abdomen. This shouldn't work- he was weak from blood loss and pain but he jerked Hyunjin's leg out from under him with whatever was left of him, and they were both falling now, the back of Hyunjin's head hitting the concrete edge first, then blood, then nothing.

When Chan jerked back to reality, a door was staring him down. There was a key card in his hand- and the throb of phantom wounds on his body. There was nothing on his person that hinted at several days of wounds as he patted himself down with alarm- it was absolutely baffling. He was sure it had happened- he wasn't prone to random thoughts of vivid walking nightmares. In his head, a case and a face swam in front of him, mocking his dysfunction.

Was it fake? How did he make all of that up?

But there was someone walking down the hall towards him now, and he didn't want the odd looks on him, so he gripped his suitcase and checked the door number again- it was the correct one, the one he was supposed to be living in.

Chan swiped the key card on the door's handle. It beeped once, turned green and he pushed open the door, glancing down to pull his suitcase through the door. 

When he looked up, he was met with the sight of a pair of familiar bright, doll eyes, a person- a mania? sitting on the bed of his hotel room.

Hyunjin smiled as the door clicked closed.

"Hello, Channie."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end!!! i hope you liked the fic, i know it was kinda short for this kind of thing but!!! if you wanna share your thoughts, I'm all ears ( or eyes hehe )

**Author's Note:**

> feedback is appreciated! if anyone wants me to add any warnings, feel free to comment or dm me on twit :>  
> twit: nvmjoonies


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